Hoarding,malpractices plague rationing system

Last week,the FIR was lodged with some activists against the godown owners for hoarding the government supply. Though the department has a system to track the kerosene supply,there is no provision to track the foodgrains supply and an sms alert is merely not enough.

“Even whether after the supply reaches the fair price shop whether the beneficary gets the mandatory foodgrain and kerosene on the card needs to be thoroughly checked,” Patil adds. Last year of the 2287 kerosene shops in Pune_after a total of 50 checks were conducted_there were 26 minor offences,23 medium offences and one grave offence registered against the shop keepers. The department also had to take action by cancelling 28 applications for kerosene,six of them were kept in suspension while 44 of them had their licenses seized.

While in case of foodgrains_14 of the applications were cancelled,7 were kept pending and 26 licenses were seized of fair price shops according to the action taken by the department. The start of the year saw the department had 16 vehicles conduct raids of which 28 litres petrol was seized,20 litres diesel and 1540 litres of kerosene were seized in the raids conducted by the department. The department officers maintain that though offences are registered,it is not taken seriously and most of the culprits get bail.

“To streamline the system,there should be proper streamline of material to the client without any tampering. Kerosene mafia all have to be dealt with,”says a senior officer from the department.

Although the chief minister has assured a proper team to be readied to conduct raids_which would include police officers,there are no sanctions yet. “Bureaucrat Yashwant Sonawane had to pay heavily for conducting raids. We have been requesting a proper system,but we are yet not having it in place,”says another officer from the department.

The department had also taken efforts to restructure and streamline and to restrict illegal practices by restructuring existing zones. The additional such as Nigdi,Pimpri,Kothrud,Hadapsar,Yerawada,Mandai,Ambil Odha and Khadki have been brough in while some existing zones were done away with the zones which were in place since 1965.

With excessive work load at certain zonal offices_which could also bring about issuing fake ration cards _the new zones have brought about better clarity in the system. There are around 9.40 lakh ration card holders in the city and Pimpri-Chinchwad. Each zone will handle some 1.50 lakh card holders after the revamp.